


that one friend who nobody likes

by desdemona (LydiaOfNarnia)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/M, M/M, Minor Injuries, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Sleepy Cuddles, could be read as platonic or pre-something, is this during teikou??? after teikou??? your guess is as good as mine, rated for aomine's mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 11:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8666044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaOfNarnia/pseuds/desdemona
Summary: Aomine walks into the room. Momoi is on the bed, crying. Kise is passed out on the floor. There's blood everywhere. Kuroko is way too calm given the current situation."What the fuck," says Aomine."We have sleepovers sometimes," Kuroko explains. "Aomine-kun is usually not invited."





	

**Author's Note:**

> i just really wanted shenanigans, and momoi/kise being bffs, then it somehow turned into a platonic foursome, then it got... not as... platonic...

Aomine is of the expert opinion that letting Kise do anything, ever, is an awful idea.

He thinks he has a right to say this, because he has first-hand knowledge of just how stupid Kise can be. This is the boy who decided arranging a date with two girls on the same night was okay, because he could _totally_ handle it. This is the same boy who, caught up in the middle of a prank war, mistook Akashi’s locker for Aomine’s and filled it with flour. This is the boy who, for a split second, almost picked a fight with _Murasakibara_ over a snack, before realizing he'd look a lot less attractive as a blond stain on the ground.

Aomine knows just how good Kise’s decision-making skills are -- in a word, terrible. Coming from someone like him, the judgement hits hard.

(Kuroko had put it very well, once: _“Aomine-kun is the character in a horror movie who tries to fight the murderer without a weapon. Kise-kun is the character who is too busy talking on the phone to notice that he is about to be killed.”_ Aomine thinks he may have shown Kuroko one too many slasher flicks.)

Of course Satsuki doesn't agree with him -- because Satsuki knows everything, as always, even when she's wrong. “Ki-chan is perfectly competent!” she’s exclaimed on more than one occasion, whacking Aomine with her clipboard. “You just have a rivalry with him, so it makes you feel better to think that he can’t do anything. You tell yourself that after you lose to him, don’t you?”

Aomine wanted to yell, because even if that is true, he also does not believe he’s ever lost to Kise in his life -- because, as he has said before, Kise does not do things well. “He’s never beat me in a one-on-one! Never!”

Satsuki, distinctly unimpressed, proceeded to recite (in explicit detail) all the _other_ ways Aomine was losing to Kise. She recounted each point as if reading off a list; in her head, Aomine figured, she probably was.

  * Aomine does not have a girlfriend. Aomine would likely not be able to keep a girlfriend if he got one.
  * Aomine’s grades are lower than Kise’s grades. Kise is not at the top of his class, but Aomine is barely making the grade to keep him on the basketball team.
  * Aomine’s social skills are inferior to Kise’s by far.
  * Kise has better hair.
  * Kise has a better smile.
  * Kise is willing to help Satsuki when she needs something. Aomine hasn't done her a single favor in months, not _one thing_ Dai-chan --



At this point, Aomine wisely fled the conversation before Satsuki could start harping at him again. He had enough experience with his best friend -- and by extension, women in general -- to know when it's time to _run_.

In retrospect, he probably should have stuck around. Maybe if he'd bothered to listen, instead of turning tail as soon as Satsuki started to yell at him, he would have realized what was going on a lot sooner.

Maybe that would have prevented him from reviving a hysterical phone call from his best friend at one in the morning on a Friday night.

Half asleep, Aomine’s first instinct when he hears wailing over the other end of the line is to bury his head beneath his pillow and hide. There is no acceptable reason for a sane person to be calling anyone at this hour, and he certainly doesn't feel like chatting.

That's when he realizes it's _Satsuki_ on the other end, voice shrill and tight with panic. She sounds like she’s crying hard, and in the background he can make out a muffled voice urging her to calm down. Between Satsuki’s frantic rambling and the frustration of whoever is with her, Aomine can only pick out a few words -- _“blood, passed out, help.”_

He has never sprung out of bed so fast in his life.

Aomine finds himself glad the hour is so late for one reason -- the neighbors will not see him streaking across the street wearing nothing but his boxers. He runs from his doorway straight to Satsuki’s own in under ten seconds. By the time he’s hammering on the door, he thinks his heart has almost caught up to his body.

His senses, unfortunately, have not. The door swings open to reveal a distinctly unimpressed Kuroko. His deadpan expression can be called nothing other than a glower, and Aomine suddenly understands how it feels to be a door-to-door salesmen.

“Aomine-kun is aware that it's past midnight.”

His pulse is pounding so hard that he can feel it in his head. The second he catches sight of bright crimson staining Kuroko’s white pajama top, he thinks a part of his soul breaks off and flies away.

Panic clogging his throat, he shoves past Kuroko and slams the door behind him. “Where's Satsuki?” he demands. “Where are her parents, why are you here, _why is there blood_ \--”

“Please calm down.”

“Don't tell me to calm down, Tetsu!” he shoots back, raising his voice without really meaning to. It's then that another call drifts from upstairs, thin and tight with pain.

“Dai-chan?”

Before Kuroko can blink, Aomine is powering up the stairs. He bursts into his best friend’s room

He is confronted with Satsuki sobbing on her bed, Kise unconscious on the floor, and… far from as much blood as he'd been led to believe.

He adequately sums up the scene in a single question: “The fuck?”

Satsuki is rambling before he can make another sound, hiccuping words through tears on just the right side of hysterical. Aomine can't make any of it out -- the language of crying people is as good as gibberish to him -- but he can clearly see the blood staining the towel Satsuki is clutching to the side of her head.

Baffled and still high on fear, Aomine takes a step into the room before hesitating. He could still walk out. This doesn't have to be his problem.

Of course, he knows perfectly well that that isn't an option. “What the hell happened?” he croaks out, directing the question not to Satsuki but Kuroko, the only one who seems able to form a coherent reply.

“Kise-kun tried to pierce Momoi-san’s ears himself,” Kuroko explains calmly. “Things went wrong.”

“That's a lot of blood for a damn ear!” There actually isn't that much blood (Aomine has been expecting pools of it -- a puddle, at least) but ears are very small things, and he's pretty sure they’re made mostly of cartilage.

“That is because he also punctured her neck.”

Aomine takes a deep breath (which does absolutely nothing to calm him) and rounds on the unconscious Kise. “He did fucking what.”

He still doesn't know why Kise is on the floor, dead to the world and looking as peaceful as a slumbering kitten. It had pissed him off when he'd walked into the room; now, knowing that Kise hurt Satsuki just makes it that much worse. With the blood everywhere, he thinks he can make an educated guess. Somehow having Kise sleep through all of this makes his rage spark even more than it already was.

“Kise-kun could not handle the blood, and fainted.” Kuroko doesn't outright say _“Kise-kun is a weakling,”_ but the implication is there.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Aomine says, right before delivering a swift kick to Kise’s side.

Satsuki stops crying just long enough to snap at Aomine to “stop swearing!” before her whimpering resumes again. Kuroko seems unperturbed as Aomine delivers another kick to Kise’s back; instead, he begins prodding the unconscious boy with his own foot, albeit with less anger behind it.

“Oi! Kise! Wake the hell up!”

“If Kise-kun does not wake up, Aomine-kun may toss you out the window.”

Suddenly, like a miracle -- Sleeping Beauty waking following a hundred years’ slumber -- Kise’s eyes flutter open. “Wha’,” he says groggily, curling in on himself. “Wha’ d’you wan-- _OW!”_

This time, Aomine’s foot lands squarely in his stomach. Kise lets out a strangled yelp, leaping to his feet as if he’s been shot. While Kuroko steps back to avoid getting hit in Kise’s confusion, Aomine stands his ground. His glower would make any lesser man wilt on the spot. Kise, to his credit, returns the look with an innocent one of his own.

“Oh,” he says after a moment. “Who invited Aominecchi?”

“What the hell did you do to Satsuki?” Aomine roars, squaring up to his full height. He looks rather like a bear about to attack, and even Kise cringes a bit in surprise. No one wants to go up against an angry Aomine.

“Umm… well,” Kise says around a nervous chuckle. “I thought we could pierce her ears with, like, a sewing needle? But then it wouldn’t go through so I pushed it and it went through too much, and it started bleeding, and I really didn’t mean to --”

Whether Kise senses his impending death coming can’t be said; but he does react fast enough to the punch Aomine throws his way that it doesn’t lay him out flat again. He gets clipped in the jaw instead, and a grunt of pain escapes him as he staggers backwards.

“Stop! Stop it!” Satsuki exclaims, but Aomine is on a rampage. He flings himself forward, catching Kise around the waist and nearly bowling him into Momoi’s desk. The leaner boy tries to reel back, but he gets taken down by Aomine’s brute force. Fists pound against Aomine’s back, bouncing off his muscles as if they form his personal protective armor. As punches fly, Momoi continues to yell, and the room quickly flies into chaos.

At least, until the bedroom light is suddenly flicked off, thrusting them all into darkness.

In the time it takes for Aomine and Kise to freeze in surprise, Momoi stops screaming. When Kuroko switches the light back on again, he looks eerily calm.

“Aomine-kun,” he says, “perhaps instead of beating up Kise-kun, you should go find a band-aid for Momoi-san.” The expression on his face makes it clear that he knows beating up Kise is more fun, but Satsuki is more important. He’s also put Aomine in a metaphorical headlock; if he says no, and continues beating up Kise, Satsuki will be furious with him. Kuroko is not only saving Kise’s shiny gold ass, he’s (inadvertently) being the guy of Satsuki’s dreams by ending the conflict threatening to tear her bedroom apart.

Sometimes Aomine hates his best friend.

“Fine,” he huffs, dropping the handful of Kise’s hair. The boy’s head hits the carpet with a satisfying thunk. “I’ll go find a damn band-aid. Don’t you dare bleed out, Satsuki!”

Over his shoulder, he can hear Kise wailing to Kuroko and Satsuki about his “precious face!” He rolls his eyes, not bothering to mask it. His only pleasure comes from the small, flat, “Don’t touch me, Kise-kun,” that precedes yet another despairing wail from Kise.

* * *

 “So,” says Aomine later on -- when Kise is in the bathroom attending to his numerous “injuries” and Satsuki’s cut is being carefully bandaged by Aomine’s steady hand (it’s a small cut, barely more than a puncture; the panic was unwarranted). “Wanna tell me why you’re all over here tonight?”

Kuroko looks reluctant, fiddling with one of the stuffed animals Satsuki keeps on her bed. Aomine knows the seal that he’s holding; Satsuki’s had it since she was fine, and used to call it “Prince Frosty”. The disparity of that familiar memory clutched in the lap of his present best friend is enough to baffle Aomine. “Tetsu,” he prompts again, sterner, and Kuroko finally looks up.

"We have sleepovers sometimes," Kuroko explains. "Aomine-kun is usually not invited."

For approximately five seconds, Aomine is not offended. Then Kuroko’s words set in full-force, and he is left blinking in bafflement as he registers what he’s just learned. “Wait. What? You -- what? Why don’t you invite me? I live next door!”

“To Momoi-san’s house, yes. Sometimes we go to Kise-kun’s, or my house. Once we even went to Murasakibara-kun’s --”

Aomine’s heart suddenly jumps into his throat, and he finds his head swerving wildly around. He half expects the purple giant to come lumbering out of Satsuki’s closet, wearing a skirt as a scarf and munching on popcorn (or whatever foods people usually ate at sleepovers, which he wouldn’t know, because he _wasn’t invited)_. He only snaps out of this when Satsuki’s elbow delivers a harsh blow to his ribs.

“Don’t be stupid, Dai-chan,” she snaps. (It’s Aomine-kun at school, and Dai-chan at home; that’s the way it’s always been.) “Mukkun isn’t here.”

“We didn’t invite him anymore, because he ate all our food,” Kise puts in from where he leans languidly against the doorway, observing the proceedings with sharp golden eyes. Aomine’s gaze snaps towards him, and he gives a (definitely nervous) little wave. “We’re an exclusive club.”

“Club of what, idiots?” snorts Aomine, still a little offended at not being deemed “exclusive” enough. Three equally offended “hey!”s answer him, as well as another elbow to the ribs (that one may have been from Kuroko).

It doesn’t make sense. He’s the life of the party. Who wouldn’t want to have him around?

He's familiar enough with Satsuki’s lists, however, to know the answer she would give him if he asked. Aomine had been in her house for less than twenty minutes, and in that time he had:

  * nearly broken down the door to her house
  * cursed enough times to corrupt the innocence of her stuffed animals
  * yelled at Kuroko
  * yelled at Satsuki
  * kicked Kise into consciousness and proceeded to start a fight, nearly destroying Satsuki’s room in the process
  * was still wearing a pair of boxers, and nothing else



So maybe there are legitimate reasons to keep him out of the sleepover. Of course, he's assuming getting stabbed isn't just a regular turn of events for a sleepover between these three.

Evidently satisfied both with Aomine’s handiwork and silence, Satsuki springs off the bed. Her bare feet sink into the plush carpet as she rounds on the three boys, clapping her hands brightly. “Okay,” she chirps, and Aomine was relieved to see her familiar bright smile in place. The tears are gone; a relief, since he has no clue how to deal with a crying Satsuki to begin with. “Since that's taken care of… who wants hot chocolate?”

Kise lets out a whoop of delight, rushing down the stairs to begin making the treat. Momoi follows at a more sedate pace, leaving Kuroko and Aomine still sitting in the middle of the room.

“Sooo,” says Aomine, “does this mean I can stay?”

* * *

 You can say whatever you want about Satsuki’s cooking, but the girl does know how to make good hot chocolate. Aomine suspects Kise was the one who’d added the more decorative embellishments, such as the whipped cream hearts and the sprinkle of cinnamon on top. It tastes delicious, so he doesn't give half a damn who made it and who stood in the kitchen and watched before taking credit for it all.

Kuroko slurps the last bit out of his mug, and lets out a contented sigh. “That tasted delicious, Momoi-san.”

“Mmm.” Satsuki leans back against her pillows, arms twined around Prince Frosty. She's practically radiating that mushy sort of late-night warmth and appreciation for your fellow man. Satsuki always gets affectionate when she's sleepy, and Aomine pretends it bothers him more than it actually does. He suspects it won't be long before she's cuddling with something other than a stuffed animal -- she can never get to sleep at night if she isn't holding something. “Thanks, Tetsu-kun. I worked hard on it!”

“How’s your ear?”

“Sore,” Satsuki mutters, wincing as a hand drifts to the side of her head. “I guess I'm not meant to have pierced ears after all.”

“Cheer up, Satsuki,” jibbes Aomine. “Things could have gone worse. You could have ended like that Van Gogh guy.”

“You mean Monet,” corrects Kise.

“No, Van Gogh.”

“Monet was the one who lost his ear!”

“I meant what I damn said, and it was Van Gogh. I read it in a book.”

“I don't say this often, but Aomine-kun is right,” Kuroko speaks up, curling up at Satsuki’s side.

“Thank you Tet- _hey!”_ As his words sink in, Aomine crinkles his nose. He is very ready to shoot back something just as biting; but his gaze lands on Kuroko’s face and catches on the thin sheen of chocolate still staining his lips. He finds himself wordless, even to tell Kuroko to wipe it off.

Thankfully, Kise does it for him. Reaching out, he swipes his thumb across Kuroko’s lips, brushing away the last of the hot chocolate. When he pops his finger into his mouth, Aomine makes a face.

“Don't do that to me,” he says automatically. In response, Kise teasingly reaches towards him; Aomine doubles back, nearly toppling off the bed. He would have fallen were it not for Kise’s hand, catching him at the last minute and pulling him back.

The boy gives him a warm smile. “Good thing I was reaching out.”

“Who almost made me fall in the first place?”

Satsuki shifts, sighing. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

In response, Kuroko muffles a yawn into her shoulder. Kise shakes his head as well, starting to curl up amidst the other two like a fox kit in its den.

Aomine’s fatigue is starting to catch up with him as well. The hot chocolate, sweet and warm, isn't helping. It seems to heat the blood in his veins, making him feel slow and heavy. Exhaustion is echoed by other members of the party, who have all curled up in what amounts to a puppy pile on Satsuki’s bed. Kuroko’s head is nestled against Satsuki’s chest. Her legs are draped over Kise’s, while he is lying horizontally to keep Kuroko from being smushed. Still, Kuroko has one arm slung around Kise’s waist, pulling him in closer as Aomine watches.

The temptation to join them is great -- but Aomine knows he would not be welcomed. He hadn't even been invited to this party to begin with, not really.

That’s when Satsuki reaches out to him, one arm imploring him to move in. “Dai-chan,” she says, voice edging between a huff and a sigh. “Come on.”

Kuroko blinks at him, and Kise gives him a drowsy smile. That's all the invitation Aomine needs before he's slotting himself into the available space. His head finds a comfortable spot nestled against the slight softness of Kuroko’s stomach, while his arm drapes across Kise and Satsuki’s legs. Kuroko lets out a contented sigh, twisting his own legs around Aomine’s torso.

“Aomine-kun is warm,” he remarks. Kise hums in agreement.

“Like a human space heater!”

Aomine gives a small chuckle. He's always known he burns hot, but… “Yeah. Guess I am.”

Satsuki mumbles a sleepy goodnight around a yawn, and Aomine allows his eyes to slip shut. It's much more comfortable than he expected it to be, curled up in a cuddle pile with three of the people closest in the world to him.

* * *

 Two weeks later, on a Friday, he's sent a mass text inviting him to Kuroko’s house that night. Following Kise and Momoi’s eager confirmations, Aomine is the last one to reply.

_[text :: Tetsu] : u’ll see me there!!_


End file.
